


Twenty

by 852_Prospect_Archivist



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Humor, M/M, None - Freeform, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 03:48:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/793643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/852_Prospect_Archivist/pseuds/852_Prospect_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On their 20th anniversary Jim and Blair look back over the years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twenty

**Author's Note:**

> If you're looking for deep, dark angst you won't find it here. No rape, no betrayal, no mental condition requiring years of therapy and rivers of tears, just warm fuzzy stuff.

## Twenty

by Texas Ranger

Author's disclaimer: These characters belong to people who aren't as free to play with them as I am. No one would pay for this Walton Mountain crapola, so don't bother to sue.

* * *

"How do I look?" 

Blair Sandburg finished tucking in his shirt and turned to his husband for approval. 

Jim tugged on a long curl. "Gorgeous, as if you had to ask." He took Blair into his arms and buried his face in his long silver curls. 

Blair grinned up at him impishly. "Yeah, I know. I was just fishing for compliments." He snuggled his head against Jim's chest and sighed happily. "Twenty years today, Rambo," he said reflectively. "Did you ever think we'd make it?" 

"Never had a doubt. Well...maybe one...or two..." Jim teased. He smiled down at Blair though he knew Blair couldn't see it. 

The anthropologist laughed and swatted Jim's bottom. "Give me one good reason I shouldn't turn you over my knee and give you an anniversary spanking," he threatened. 

"I'll give you three," Jim offered, poking Blair's upturned nose to make each point. "One: I'm still bigger." _poke_ "Two: your casserole is done downstairs." _poke_ "And three:Daryl and his family just pulled up and it would be very awkward to explain why I was over your knee completely naked when they walked in." _poke_

Blair thought for a minute. "Think they'd believe I was checking your oil?" 

Jim grinned. "No, but I could go for a lube job tonight." He gave his Guide a gentle push. "The casserole." 

Blair stuck out his tongue and bounded down the stairs to rescue the main course. 

Jim held his breath until Blair was safely down. Losing his eyesight had not slowed the anthropologist a bit; in fact, Jim suspected that Blair liked to show everyone-especially his overprotective Sentinel-how independent he still was.Jim loved his self-reliance, but sometimes wished Blair would allow more babying. 

But that was Blair's style: take life as it comes and adapt accordingly. Jim had been heartbroken when Blair's doctor said the blindness was permanent, but Blair had shrugged. "There are worse things," he'd said, dismissing the loss of one of his senses, and had set about learning to cope. 

At first, Jim had tried to convince Blair to let him do the cooking, cleaning, and household tasks, but Blair had protested. "Jim, I'm not a vegetable, just blind. With a little relearning, I can do everything I always have. Besides, I am _not_ spending the rest of my life eating Wonderburgers because it's perpetually your night to cook." 

Brilliant mind applied, Blair had retrained himself to do everything around the loft. As Jim's arthritis got worse with each year, Blair's hyperactivity and able body was necessary. 

Jim carefully navigated the stairs and went to let their arriving guests in. He opened the door before the knock as was the tradition and was rewarded with the delighted squeals of Daryl's daughters. 

"Uncle Jim, how do you always know we're here before we knock?" 10-year-old Jasmine asked the ritual question. 

Jim held his hand up to his neck. "Tell you when you're this tall," he supplied the ritual answer. 

12-year-old Jade stood toe-to-toe with him and grinned. "Better think up a good answer, Uncle Jim," she said, "'cause it won't be long.I grew another inch this month." 

"Good for you!" Jim said proudly. The Banks family grew some large ones. Daryl and his wife were both over six feet, and their daughters would surely be at least that. And Simon- 

"Hey, where's your dad?" Jim asked. 

"He'll be a little late," Daryl's wife Galina said. "His Zen meditation class doesn't get out for another five minutes." 

Jim gaped. " _Simon_ is taking a Zen meditation class?" he asked incredulously. "Since when?" 

Daryl and Galina snickered. "Since he met that widow woman who teaches it," Daryl snorted. "Dad even gave her a bag of his precious Hawaiian Macadamia Nut espresso, so I guess it's serious." 

"Hey, do I hear my favorite girls?" Blair said from the kitchen doorway. He held out his arms and Jade and Jasmine ran to hug him. 

"Uncle Blair, do you know-?" 

"Uncle Blair, my teacher said-" 

Jade and Jasmine flooded Blair with questions and facts, hugging and generally getting in his way as he served dinner. Blair basked in their attention, somehow managing to simultaneously cuddle, set the table, answer questions, and avoid tripping over the girls. 

Jim watched the dinner ballet affectionately until he heard Simon walk into the building. "I guess that'd be your Grampa Simon," he said loudly, eyeing the girls slyly. 

They stopped mid-babble and stared at the door. 

_Knock knock_

Jim opened the door with a flourish and in cripped Simon Banks, leaning on a cane, a case of beer tucked under one arm. "Damn, Jim!" he complained. "Give an old man a heart attack!" 

Jade and Jasmine gaped. "How do you _do_ that?" Jade asked again. 

Jim shrugged mysteriously and took the beer from Simon. "Just in time. Blair just set the table. So," he asked, deliberately casual, "how's Zen meditation class?" 

Simon glared at his son and daughter-in-law. "Some people have big mouths around here. But since you asked, it's going well." He lowered himself into a chair and served himself. 

Blair grinned. "And what's her name?" he asked innocently. 

"Well," Simon said, "she-" he stopped, realizing he'd been tricked. 

"Grampa's got a girlfriend," Galina announced. 

"She's not a girlfriend!" Simon protested, smiling a little."We just have a lot in common, that's all." 

Blair allowed Jim to fill his plate and glass. "And what's her name?" he asked again. 

Simon gave Blair an exasperated sigh. "You just don't give up, do you, Sandburg? Okay, it's Finkleman." 

Jim choked. "Finkleman? Captain Finkleman?" 

"She retired ten years ago, but yes, it's the same Finkleman," Simon said defensively. 

Blair and Jim looked at each other, remembering the abrasive Captain Finkleman who'd filled in while Simon was in the hospital with a bullet wound. "Sounds like a match made in heaven to me," Jim said. 

"Speaking of matches made in heaven," Simon said, deftly changing the subject, "here's to twenty years." He raised his glass and saluted the happy couple. 

Blair reached out and Jim took his hand gently. They held on to each other while they ate, pausing occasionally to look into each other's eyes and smile. 

After dinner, they moved into the living room with their coffee. Jim grunted softly as he lowered himself onto the couch, too softly for anyone to hear. But Blair did, of course. Blair was always alert to everything about his Sentinel. 

"Bad tonight, babe?" Blair asked quietly, rubbing softly at Jim's arthritic back. 

"Not too," Jim replied, looping an arm around his husband's shoulder and pulling him close. 

Watching them from across the room, Simon chuckled. "Twenty years," he commented. "You two have been driving each other crazy for two decades now." He turned to Galina and the girls. "When Jim first walked in with this snot-nosed kid tagging after him I gave it a week, but it turned into a real partnership." He smiled fondly. 

Jasmine snickered. "Uncle Blair was a snot-nosed kid?" 

Blair protested, "Well, I wouldn't exactly say-" 

Simon cut him off. "Hell yes! He used to wear this yellow corduroy coat that looked like he stole it off a bum." 

Jim laughed. "He still has that coat!" 

"And he had this bowling shirt," Simon continued. "I'm surprised it didn't have 'Al' stitched over the pocket." He dissolved into snickers. "Anyway, they came into my office that morning and Sandburg gave me the hard sell, babbling about thin blue lines and closed societies. I had half a mind to toss him in the drunk tank." Simon shook his head. "But something in the way Jim was looking at him made me give him a chance." 

"And they've been together ever since." Galina said. 

Jim smiled. "Well...there've been a few ups and downs-" 

"Mostly ups," Blair supplied. 

"-but we made it." He squeezed Blair's hand. 

"Anyway, I wasn't the only weirdo in this relationship," Blair said, elbowing Jim in the ribs. "Remember the House Rules?" 

"What House Rules?" Jade asked, leaning forward. The girls loved to hear stories from their favorite uncles. 

"When I first moved in here Jim-" Blair stopped, trying to get his giggles under control. "He came up with all these rules. He color-coded the leftovers, mine in red, his in blue!" 

Daryl laughed. "Yeah, that sounds like Jim." 

"And I couldn't flush the john after 10pm," Blair went on, "so I made it a point to go right before bed so Jim would see it the next morning." 

"I _knew_ you did that on purpose, brat!" Jim kicked Blair's ankle lightly. 

"Worst of all, he threatened to cover the furniture in plastic." 

The room erupted in hysterical laughter. 

"I was joking," Jim said mildly. 

"Were not!" Blair shot back, leaning into Jim's embrace. 

"Uncle Blair, tell us about when you asked Uncle Jim to marry you," Jade said. 

"And tell about your wedding, too," Jasmine chimed in. 

Blair pretended to hesitate. "Aww, you don't want to hear that old story again, do you?" 

The girls bounced and begged until Blair relented, then settled down and got quiet, as they had for Blair's stories since they were born. 

"Okay, I'd been thinking about asking Jim to marry me for two months, but I couldn't get up the nerve. I knew he loved me, but would he want to spend the rest of his life with me?" Blair paused for effect. "I finally went out and bought two rings, but the time was never right to ask, and if Jim said no, it would break my heart, so I kept putting it off. 

We were driving home on Halloween night when Jim asked, 'What do you want to do tonight, Chief?', so I said, 'We could rent a movie, we could go out to dinner, or you could marry me and we could spend the rest of our lives together.'" Blair's hands moved through the air as he talked. "Jim gets real quiet, right, and I'm thinking, 'Good one, Sandburg. You scared the hell out of him' and I'm feeling terrible, when Jim says, 'Let's do it.'" Blair grinned, remembering. "I said, 'What? You really mean it, because I'm serious here, Jim' and he looks over at me and smiles-you know, the smile where his whole face lights up-and he says, 'Only if you ask me properly.' That's Jim for you, always one for tradition, so I get down on one knee, which was not easy in that old truck, and I say, 'Jim Ellison, will you be my husband?' And he said yes." 

Galina reached across and squeezed Daryl's hand and he smiled back at her. 

"So we drove like mad to the courthouse," Blair continued. "By this time it was 7:00 and we were desperate to find someone to marry us, so Uncle Jim drove like a bat out of hell, which is business as usual for him-" 

Jim swatted Blair's leg. "I'm not that bad!" 

"Oh no?" Simon interrupted. "I think next we'll tell the story of how Uncle Jim wrecked Grampa's new car." 

"How many cars have you wrecked over the years, Jim?" Daryl teased. 

"Not many," Jim said defensively. "Maybe four or five." 

"Try seven," Blair corrected, holding up the appropriate number of fingers. "You kept the junkyards in business in your day, love." 

"Tell about the wedding!" Jasmine prompted. 

Blair winked at his Sentinel and went on. "So, we screech up to the courthouse, jump out, and race up to the justice of the peace offices. The secretary tells us they're all gone home for the night, and we must've looked as disappointed as we felt, because then she says, 'Wait. Judge Griffith is still here. I'll ask if she'll see you.' She disappears into the judge's chambers and comes out in a minute. 'The judge will marry you, but she wants you to know she's officially off duty and not exactly dressed for the job,'. We kinda looked at each other. What did we care if she was in jeans and a t-shirt, as long as she did the deed, right? The judge came out-" 

Everyone started to grin in anticipation. 

"-wearing a Little Bo Peep costume, complete with curly blonde wig, white stockings, and shepherd's staff! She was just about to take her kids trick-or-treating when we came in." 

The room erupted in laughter, and Blair waited for it to die down before going on. "So she musters as much dignty as she can and asks if we have our marriage license. Jim and I look at each other like complete idiots! Of course we didn't have any paperwork. The judge nods and tells us to get it on her desk first thing Monday morning. 

Then she asks where are witnesses are. Shit! We don't have them, either! We're feeling like this marriage thing might be a bad idea because, hey, nothing's working out too smoothly, when the judge motions to her secretary. 'Kathy,' she says, 'I wonder if you'll do the honors?' so the secretary comes over. The judge frowns and points out that we need one more witness, but who're we gonna get? The whole place is closed down by now, right? That doesn't phase the judge. She sticks her head out the door and says, 'Bob, would you step in here for a moment?'. And in walks the janitor, mop in hand, and we're good to go." 

Blair took a sip of his beer. "So the judge takes us through a short ceremony, we said some vows we made up on the spot. When I placed that ring on Jim's finger and I felt him place one on mine, I knew we belonged to each other forever." 

The girls grinned at each other. 

"As we were leaveing the judge told us something we've never forgotten over the years. She said, 'This wedding was one of the worst-planned I've ever done, but compromise and flexibility made it work. Let those qualities follow you and your marriage will work, too." Blair sat back and smiled, satisfied. 

"That's beautiful," Galina beamed. 

"We learned in history class that same-sex marriages used to be illegal," Jasmine said. "Is that true?" 

Jim nodded. "I'm glad it's history, honey, because that's where prejudice belongs. Yes, it's true." 

Jade looked confused. "You mean, you and Uncle Blair weren't allowed to get married once?" 

"Nope. Men couldn't marry men and women couldn't marry women," Jim said. "You could get married in some churches, but the law said you still weren't married legally." 

"Why not?" Jade asked. 

"Because some people believed, and still do, that the kind of love Uncle Jim and I have for each other is wrong," Blair explained. "And they convinced the people who make laws that same-sex relationships should be illegal. Some brave church people went against their churches and married couples like us, and some of them were thrown out of their churches for it." 

"But churches are supposed to teach love," Jasmine said. "Why wouldn't they want you to love each other no matter who you are? Why is it their business?" 

Daryl reached over and patted his daughter. "Because they think they have the right to make decisions for everyone, honey, even if they don't know very much." 

"That's stupid!" Jade scoffed. "I'm glad that stupid law is gone." 

Jim hugged Blair. "So are we, babe." 

The talk turned to cop shop. Daryl and Galina, as captains of Major Crimes and the Bomb Squad, respectively, filled the retired people in on the latest downtown goings-on, while Blair lamented his new duties as Department Head. 

"You wouldn't have such a heavy load if you didn't insist on teaching the intro classes yourself, Chief," Jim pointed out. 

"I know," Blair shrugged, "but I like teaching far more than I like budgets and paperwork and meetings. It's satisfying, and I love the feeling that maybe I'm influencing some of these kids." 

Jim cuffed him affectionately. "Yeah, especially the co-eds." He turned to the group. "Do you know he _still_ gets letters from lovesick girls? One of them showed up here one night asking for class notes with a bottle of wine in hand." 

"You still turn the heads too, Jim," Blair pointed out. "What about that woman at the gym who insists you'd be straight 'if you just gave it a chance'?" He snuggled closer. 

"Speaking of women," Jim said evilly, "how is ol' Finkleman these days, Simon?" 

Simon fidgeted. "Dammit, Jim, don't use that tone of voice. She's mellowed quite a bit." 

"Uh huh," Jim said doubtfully. "I'll believe it when I see it." 

"Good," Simon said, "because I'm bringing her here for dinner tomorrow night. She remembered the wise-ass with the Jags cap and clip-on tie right away, and she can't wait to renew your acquaintance." 

"I'll wear my Kevlar," Jim said drily. 

Galina and Daryl rose. "I think it's time to head for home," Galina said, motioning to her daughters, who were asleep at Jim and Blair's feet. 

Simon rose and stretched. "Me too. I'm worn out." 

"Who wouldn't be after a date with Finkleman?" Jim commented. 

"Tomorrow for dinner," Simon threatened. "Happy anniversary." 

Daryl roused his girls and helped them with their coats. "Tell Jim and Blair good night." 

They each gave their uncles a hug and kiss. "Will you come to my basketball game this Saturday?" Jasmine asked. 

"Wouldn't miss it," Blair promised. 

"And my play?" Jade asked. 

"It's a date," Jim smiled. "By the way, girls, you might want to hold the front door for Mrs. Kennedy who's about to come up the walk with an armload of Chinese takeout." 

The girls followed their parents, muttering, "How does he _do_ that?" 

Blair shut the door and held out his arms. "So," he said. "Twenty years." 

"Yep," Jim agreed, embracing his Guide. 

"What time is it?" 

Jim looked at his watch. "Ten o'clock." 

Blair wiggled against Jim seductively. "The night is still young." 

"It is indeed, Chief," Jim said. "So whatta ya say? Take me upstairs and show an old man a good time?" 

Blair laughed. "Gladly." 


End file.
